Beer: Ratings & Reviews

Reviews by mychalg9:

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4/5rDev n/alook: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 3

Little or no head, dense animated carbonation. The nose is fairly subtle, with coffee and malt. This is a blockbuster: syrupy feel and heavy body, nearly opaque black-brown color. Taste is winey all the way through, beginning with fermented coffee bean (and perhaps black cherry?) and then finishing, long and loyally, with a medicinal, Ricola drops-herbal dry finish. While there are caramel notes throughout, there is no nuttiness or sweetness, just the idea of sweetness because of the heavy flavor. I'm beginning to see more of this in dark porters and stouts and applaud it: undercutting any sweet or syrupy overkill by lively carbonation.

Taste threw me for a loop. The coffee and black plum that were prominent in the nose take a back seat to chocolate and prune/raisin. A smooth transition in the middle to the coffee and tannin, but for the most part this is a smooth tasting beer that has strength. Robust but no overly complex.

Upstream's RIS is a good presentation of the style, though I would enjoy a more aromatic beer with greater range of roasted flavor profiles. Still, as a locally produced and available beer, I'm glad that it's available and would enjoy another.

Arrives with a thin, ashen black-grey head with copious lacing, maintains a perpetual cap atop the glass. Body is black, completely opaque.

Aroma is fairly subtle, some roasted malt characters and some general sweetness. Not picking up any special coffee or chocolate, as I might expect from other examples of the style.

Taste opens with mild sweetness, leading into moderate roasted malt flavors and roasted malt bitterness. These flavors continue, with mild caramel-like sweetness noted during mid-taste through finish. Closes out with roasted malt bitterness that continues to linger for a bit.

The beer is medium to medium-heavy in body, with expected smoothness from the oats alongside a modest carbonation that allows for easy sipping of this beer. Finish is expectedly dry from the roast malt and hop usage.